Full review

Buccaneer is the most expensive volume-manufacture caravan in the UK. It’s also the widest British-made caravan. It’s the only caravan that levels itself. You can control the Alde heating using your mobile phone. And the Alde system incorporates under-floor heating. Buccaneers have so much equipment that they can’t really be compared to any other touring caravan; they’re out there on their own, bristling with technological advancement.

There’s even a mains power load monitoring system. This prevents you from tripping out the mains power supply to your pitch, by automatically governing the amount of power the caravan is drawing as you use appliances.

It’s activated from the touch-screen Alde central heating control panel, where you can insert the amperage limit on the pitch, for example 10amps, or 6amps. The system will automatically turn off the Alde heating when you use an item such as a kettle, microwave or hairdryer. When you have finished using the appliance, the system automatically turns the heating system back on again.

There’s a 100-watt solar panel on the roof; ideal for when you want to be independent of mains power.

But it’s perhaps the automatic, remote-controlled hydraulic leveling system that is the most spectacular feature of 2015 Buccaneers. You tow onto your pitch, unhitch, press a button on a handset or the control panel inside the doorway, and your caravan levels itself, in a few seconds.

The system runs from a central hub unit, mounted under the floor just behind the axle; inside it there is a gyroscopic sensor. There are six jacks; two at the axle and one at each of the corner steadies. The lifting is done on the axle jacks.
The system is designed to automatically level a caravan on a slope of up to 8%. By chance, that’s the aspect of the system we put to the test first. We were at the Explorer Group factory to review the Cruiser, and our first task was to get it into position for its photography.

County Durham is hilly, and the lie of the land where Buccaneers are made is no exception. We quickly found that much of Explorer Group’s vast factory environs have slopes which exceed 8%. It took us five attempts to find land level enough to roughly resemble a typical unlevel campsite pitch suitable for the automatic levelling system. (If the gradient exceeds 8% the system simply stops, and waits for you to reposition the caravan on more level ground.)

When we did find a position that is more akin to a campsite pitch, the levelling device whirred through its routine happily and in just a couple of minutes the axle jacks and then the corner steadies lowered into place and the big Buccaneer eased slightly upwards on one side and rose at the front. It’s an impressive action, smooth, quick, and guaranteed to turn heads on campsites.

If you dislike manually lowering corner steadies or using a rechargeable drill to do the job, you’ll be bowled over by this technology. Especially as the system can be used to jack a caravan up in order to fit a wheel lock. Owners of twin-axle caravans, in particular, will identify with the nuisance task of having to jack up your caravan in order to fit the second of the two wheel locks.

Captivated by this technological innovation from E&P Hydraulics, we were eager to explore the interior of this super-spec caravan.

It’s 2.45m wide, which is 14cm wider than previous models, so the feeling of space as you step inside is impressive. The tower-style fridge-freezer, just aft of the door, seems a long way from the kitchen. Which it is; the floor space here measures 1.21m. Just as important as space in the central area, the extra width gives you a wide corridor at the foot of the transverse island bed. There’s no need for a mechanism to retract the bed slightly to increase corridor width en route to the shower room…
 

Showering

As you’d expect, the shower room oozes style. A big, chunky chrome heated towel rail, a grey granite-look rectangular sink sitting up on the cabinet, and dark grey tile-effect walls in the shower combine to create the wow-factor.

There’s a triple-bar towel rail in the shower. You can retract it into a casing when it’s not in use. And Buccaneers have the new Ecocamel Orbit showerhead. The head is a white halo-shaped design containing 10 clusters of rubber water spray nodules. Like the more familiar flat circle Ecocamel Jetstorm shower heads which are fitted to several models of caravans, the new Orbit design injects air into the water stream through a small hole at the base of the handle. When the air mixes with the water, turbulence is caused, increasing the pressure inside the showerhead, forcing the water out of the head with more power.
 

Sleeping

The mattress is the newly developed Ozio type, constructed of three layers, with vertically-lapped fibres designed to create breathability. It’s pleasingly yielding when you sit and lie on it, giving us the impression it would be extremely comfortable.
 

Storage

The under-bed area is the Cruiser’s greatest storage asset. It’s not just large and easy to raise (a flick of one finger sends it upwards on its gas-filled hinges). It’s devoid of framework that could hinder putting in (and removing) large folding chairs. There’s a 78cm-wide exterior door to this space, too. Even though the 40-litre water tank is under the bed, this is still a vast and easily-used storage area.

Top lockers have very refined tilt-mechanism handles and positive catches.

The wardrobes (on both sides of the bed) have lights which switch on automatically when you open the door.

Three drawers are under each wardrobe and there is a cabinet in the offside front corner of the bedroom.
 

Dining

The table lives in a cabinet on the fore end of the kitchen. The width between the settees is so generous, thanks to the wide body of the caravan, that you can position it across the caravan if you wish. It’s a useful option as it leaves more floor space.
 

Lounging

 
“Skyscape” (Buccaneer’s terminology) lounge sunroofs are introduced to Buccaneers for 2015. They are set into a cream leather-effect frame with four tiny, bright spotlights that focus light directly down into the lounge.

The side curtains hang on chrome café rods. The seating, like the mattress, is the Ozio fibre-layered construction and it feels every bit as comfortable as sprung upholstery. The cool creams and fawns of the curtains and upholstery look classy. And it’s here sitting in the lounge, that you appreciate the extra width of the Cruiser compared with the vast majority of other caravans.
 

Kitchen

Locker catches in the kitchen are impressive for their ingenuity. They’re totally hidden, just under the base of each door. Neat metal barrels rotate when you touch them, releasing a trigger catch.

Four drawers, 42cm wide, plus a two-shelf cabinet, 48cm wide, provide vast lower storage. A cabinet is above the microwave-freezer stack opposite the kitchen. And alongside the fridge a slim cabinet gives you three shelves. Kitchen storage is impressive. So, too, is the amount of surface space, which stretches 70cm forward from the polished rock-effect sink.

You can switch on a light in the oven to illuminate your cooking. Buccaneer’s designers, it seems, have thought of every possible refinement
 

Towing

Buccaneers ride on BPW chassis, as distinct from the more usually-found AL-KO chassis. As you’d expect of a top-spec caravan, it’s equipped with a stability control system; it’s called iDC (Intelligent Drive Control). In a similar way to AL-KO’s ATC system, it detects and then corrects the first sign of a snaking motion before it has chance to develop. But then of course snaking is much less of a risk when you have four wheels rather than two.

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